Inter-organizational cooperations between public and private partners, called public private partnerships (PPP), are increasingly gaining more importance concerning renewal, standardization, and optimization of the information technology (IT) infrastructure of public sector organizations. Reasons for this trend include the search for partners with the necessary technological and innovative know-how for sourcing of IT and the identification of cost-saving potentials. Unfortunately, IT-PPP-cooperations are particularly susceptible to failure due to the clash of different cultures. Divergent understandings and expectations, and pressure from the relevant stakeholders hinder a working partnership. Therefore in this exploratory, qualitative single-case study from the German TollCollect IT megaproject, we draw on findings from boundary spanning literature to explain how establishing preconditions for boundary spanning and actively bridging the gap between the partners, moderated by external stakeholder support, affects the formation of mutual trust and hence the success of an IT-PPP-megaproject.

A challenge that IS researchers face in general is to combine the goals of generating new scientific knowledge while at the same time producing practically relevant research results, e.g., in the form of IT artefacts. To combine rigor and relevance, researchers and practitioners need to collaborate to develop and employ methods that enable both the systematic generation of scientific insights and the knowledge exchange between academia and industry. In this paper, we present the findings of a research project where we entered into an industry-academic collaboration with the financial services industry involving three software development and implementation projects. We adopted a design science research approach to accompany the project and to guide the scientific discovery process. In the course of our research process we developed an innovative research model that integrates our experiences from the research project with existing design science research models.

Prior research in the context of public private partnerships has mainly focused on organizational and risk management aspects. Because there is a growing number of IT megaprojects in the context of public private partnerships, recent work concentrates on the explanation of the relationship between public and private partners and the success factors for these relations. However, we still have a lack of understanding on the causes and consequences for IT megaproject failure in the context of public private partnerships. In this exploratory, qualitative single-case study from the German TollCollect IT megaproject we draw on findings from the psychological contract theory to explain psychological contract violation as a threat to IT megaproject success. Our research model suggests that the management of common understanding and expectations, moderated by political and public pressure of a public-private environment, affects the stability of the psychological contract and therefore the success of an IT megaproject in the context of public private partnerships.

Conflict as Manifestation of Culture in Global IS Outsourcing Relationships

In: Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Information System (ECIS 2010); Pretoria, South Africa

Category: Proceedings

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to propose a new way of analyzing culture in global IS outsourcing relationships. Previous research in IS has focused on the analysis of values, beliefs, customs, and other elements of culture whereas other inherent characteristics of culture, such as its dynamic and subjective nature, have been widely ignored. Hence, we suggest analyzing culture and identity in relation to action thereby accounting in more detail for the above mentioned characteristics. In particular, we develop a conceptual model describing the relationship between social identity and conflict in global IS outsourcing relationships. Propositions are derived from social identity and inter-personal conflict theory. The concept of cognitive flexibility (derived from cultural intelligence theory) is introduced as a moderator variable, influencing the relationship between social identity and inter-personal conflict. The conceptual model developed in this paper makes a theoretical contribution to the global IS outsourcing domain and serves as a basis for future empirical research.